We read the fine print of the Royals & Chiefs leases so you don’t have to. What we learned

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Both the Royals and Chiefs made their deadline for having new leases, development agreements and community benefits agreements negotiated before Jackson County voters decide on Tuesday whether to approve a 40-year stadiums sales tax.

Well, sort of.

None of those documents are official yet.

They still need approval by the Jackson County Legislature, and that won’t happen before the votes are counted on Question 1. And it might not happen until changes are made in those documents, county Legislator Sean Smith stressed in a radio interview a week before Election Day.

At a signing ceremony last week, the Royals and the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority agreed to lease and development agreements for a new Royals ballpark in the East Crossroads. The Chiefs and sports authority did the same for a renovated Arrowhead Stadium, and both teams had earlier signed documents with an un-elected county committee agreeing to provide certain benefits to the community, if the tax is approved.

But none of those 265 pages of wherefores and whereases on the sports authority website are legally binding. That will take approval from the Jackson County Legislature. None of the team documents will be discussed when the nine-member body holds its regular meeting on Monday, chair Jeanie Lauer confirmed on Friday.

They aren’t even on the agenda. That means it could be awhile before the i-dotting and t-crossing is through and the documents become legally binding contracts.

Except even the teams and the county can still walk away, unless certain contingencies are met.

That’s clear from a close reading of the deals that the Chiefs and Royals agreed to with the county sports authority, their current landlord at the Truman Sports Complex and whose board nominated by the county and appointed by the governor would continue in that role, even if the Royals move to a new, county-owned ballpark.

Here are some of the important things that have to happen first:

Voter approval

Once again, county voters would have to approve Question 1 on Tuesday. The ballot measure would repeal the current 3/8th-cent tax that voters passed in 2006 and replace it with new 3/8th-cent tax that would run for 40 years.

Revenue from the tax would go to pay debt that the county would incur for its upfront share of construction costs.

How much would that be? That’s nowhere to be found in any of the paperwork, although the teams have said they would expect the total to be about $300 million to $350 million per stadium.

Tax revenue would also be deposited into accounts known as RMMO funds that, for the life of the leases, the sports authority would reimburse the teams from for repairs, maintenance, management and operations of the county-owned stadiums.

Address old debt

Before that revenue would begin to flow, the county would need to pay off existing bonds and issue new ones in an unspecified amount to cover the new projects. The bonds sold in 2006 to fund the county’s $425 million share of the $575 million renovations of Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums were refinanced in 2014.

The new borrowings would pay off the $173.6 million still owed on that refinancing as of March 1, as well as the county’s share of the new ballpark costs and its share of the cost of renovations at Arrowhead. The county would also issue “facility bonds” to pay for the demolition of Kauffman Stadium.

The teams say neither the county nor the sports complex authority will have to shoulder demolition costs, should the Royals move and the Chiefs take over that space. The teams say they will pay, but that’s a matter of definition. The lease and development agreements say that the money to pay facility bond debt will come from each teams’ share of the new stadiums sales tax collections and — until 2030 — from the county parks property tax levy that now goes to both teams’ RMMO funds. Parks levy dollars could also go to help pay off the existing debt on the 2006 projects.

If the sales tax passes, the teams have agreed to give up the parks levy funding, which they’ve been collecting since 1990. No parks levy money will go for the new ballpark, the Royals’ proposed lease says, or to the Chiefs’ project.

The teams have also agreed to pay the insurance premiums that the county now covers for a combined savings to taxpayers of more than $200 million over 40 years.

Numbers in writing for a Royals stadium

For the Royals project to progress, the sports authority and the Royals must have approved a plan and criteria for a new stadium, a project budget, project schedule, preliminary project schedule and minimum requirement elements.

None of these requirements were included in the development agreement except for in the table of contents.

One important document, the source and use form, is in there. But the spaces are blank next to headings for how much the state of Missouri, Royals, Jackson County and Kansas City would be expected to contribute to the project. Same for the use-of-funds section next to the headings for costs of land acquisition, stadium infrastructure and the seating bowl.

All are blank.

The Chiefs, on the other hand, have included a preliminary project budget in the football club’s proposed development agreement. It lists 19 line items, giving a general breakdown of how the organization intends to spend all $800 million of its $800 million project, from $2.7 million to relocate the visiting team locker room to $33.2 million for canopies over the upper concourse, to $98.1 million for repairing beams.

As for project financing, the development agreement says the team will contribute at least $300 million toward the project, along with unspecified “contributions made by other governmental entities.” There is no mention on who those other governmental entities might be other than that taxpayer funding would include “any necessary available amounts” from the new sales tax that the Chiefs and the sports authority determines “may be used for permissible purposes.”

How much? The document doesn’t say. Gov. Mike Parson has said he would try to help out both teams with state funds, if the sales tax passes. But he hasn’t said how much.

Sort out city support

The Chiefs make no specific mention of city aid. But in the Royals’ development agreement, the downtown ballpark is contingent on city funding in an unspecified amount acceptable to the Royals in the teams’ “sole discretion.” Similarly, the stadium project is dependent on the Royals being satisfied with support from the city, the port authority or other agencies enabled by the city to provide financial aid for additional commercial development around the ballpark.

The Royals say their project also depends on help from city government on things like zoning, street closures, land acquisition, formation of one or more special taxing districts and a sales tax exemption for construction materials. The team recently backed off on its plan to close Oak Street for the proposed stadium and adjacent ballpark district in response to objections from Mayor Quinton Lucas. The mayor also announced the other day that the city will not help the team obtain private properties from reluctant sellers by exercising its powers of condemnation.

Sort out state support

Where the Chiefs do not come right out and say their project is depending on state funding, the Royals do in their development agreement. That document says the project is also dependent on funding from the team in an amount acceptable to the county. How much? Again, it doesn’t say.

But on Thursday, Royals majority owner John Sherman said during a radio interview on KCUR that the team would spend $300 million, or in that range, for what he said would be the $1.3 billion cost of a new ballpark. He did not specify where the other $1 billion would come from, other than what would come from the sales tax.

Approval from MLB, NFL and Jackson County

Finally, the proposed agreements said their new leases would be contingent on approval from their respective leagues and the county by the end of 2024. Also the Royals said their agreement depended on the teams being able to acquire land for the Crossroads ballpark by June 1, 2025 so that construction can begin and be completed before opening day in the spring of 2028.